Jewish Peace News (JPN) is an information service that circulates news clippings, analyses, editorial commentary, and action alerts concerning the Israel / Palestine conflict. We work to promote a just resolution to the conflict; we believe that the cause of both peace and justice will be served when Israel ends the occupation, withdrawing completely from the Palestinian territories and finding a solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis within the framework of international law.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman is renewing his calls to resolve the Israel / Palestine conflict by means of ethnic cleansing. He wants to strip Palestinian citizens of Israel of their citizenship and to relocate them outside the future borders of Israel, borders that would be redrawn to include Jewish West Bank settlements.

These ideas are not new, but as Jonathan Cook argues below, it is significant that Lieberman's plans are reappearing at this point in the public debate. Given Israel's currently low standing in the international community (at least as far as diplomatic language is concerned), and the Netanyahu government's failure to engage in the sort of diplomatic charade known as the peace process, Lieberman apparently sees an opening for his radical solutions. But also, as Ben White has argued in a recent Al Jazeera article, Israel's deteriorating international standing is being accompanied by increasing state violence and displays of racist hatred against Palestinian citizens in Israel. As Janan Abdu, wife of imprisoned Palestinian NGO leader Ameer Makhoul has said: "They are afraid of us, of our identity, and how the youth are proud to be Palestinian. I think we are entering a tough period and the people will pay the price." http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/06/201062211432729531.htmlJudith Norman

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's far-right foreign minister, set out last week what he called a "blueprint for a resolution to the conflict" with the Palestinians that demands most of the country's large Palestinian minority be stripped of citizenship and relocated outside Israel's future borders.

Lieberman warned that Israel faces growing diplomatic pressure for a full withdrawal to the Green Line, the pre-1967 border. Lieberman said that, if such a partition were implemented, "the conflict will inevitably pass beyond those borders and into Israel."

He accused many of Israel's 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of acting against Israel while their leaders "actively assist those who want to destroy the Jewish state."

Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party campaigned in last year's elections on a platform of "No loyalty, no citizenship" and has proposed a raft of loyalty laws over the past year targeted at the Palestinian minority.

True peace, the foreign minister claimed, would come only with land swaps, or "an exchange of populated territories to create two largely homogeneous states, one Jewish Israeli and the other Arab Palestinian." He added that under his plan "those Arabs who were in Israel will now receive Palestinian citizenship."

Unusually, Lieberman, who is also deputy prime minister, offered his plan in a commentary for the English-language Israeli daily newspaper Jerusalem Post, apparently in an attempt to make maximum impact on the international community.

He has spoken repeatedly in the past about drawing the borders in a way to forcibly exchange Palestinian communities in Israel for the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

But under orders from Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, he has kept a relatively low profile on the conflict's larger issues since his controversial appointment to head the foreign ministry more than a year ago.

In early 2009, Lieberman, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Noqedim, upset his own supporters by advocating the creation of "a viable Palestinian state," though he has remained unclear about what it would require in practice.

Lieberman's revival of his "population transfer" plan - an idea he unveiled six years ago - comes as the Israeli leadership has understood that it is "isolated like never before," according to Michael Warschawski, an Israeli analyst.

Netanyahu's government has all but stopped paying lip service to US-sponsored "proximity talks" with the Palestinians after outraging global public opinion with attacks on Gaza 18 months ago and on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla four weeks ago in which nine civilians were killed.

Israel's relations with the international community are likely to deteriorate further in late summer when a 10-month partial freeze on settlement expansion in the West Bank expires. Last week, Netanyahu refused to answer questions about the freeze, after a vote by his Likud party's central committee to support renewed settlement building from late September.

Other looming diplomatic headaches for Israel are the return of the Goldstone Report, which suggested Israel committed war crimes in its attack on Gaza, to the United Nations General Assembly in late July, and Turkey's adoption of the rotating presidency of the Security Council in September.

Warschawski, a founder of the Alternative Information Centre, a joint Israeli-Palestinian advocacy group, said that, faced with these crises, Israel's political elite had split into two camps.

Most, including Lieberman, believed Israel should "push ahead" with its unilateral policies towards the Palestinians and refuse to engage in a peace process regardless of the likely international repercussions.

"Israel's ruling elite knows that the only solution to the conflict acceptable to the international community is an end to the occupation along the lines of the Clinton parameters," he said, referring to the two-state solution promoted by former US president Bill Clinton in late 2000.

"None of them, not even Ehud Barak [the defence minister and head of the centrist Labour Party], are ready to accept this as the basis for negotiations."

On the other hand, Tzipi Livni, the head of the center-right opposition Kadima party, Warschawski said, wanted to damp down the international backlash by engaging in direct negotiations with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank under President Mahmoud Abbas.

Lieberman's commentary came a day after he told Livni that she could join the government only if she accepted "the principle of trading territory and population as the solution to the Palestinian issue, and give up the principle of land for peace."

Lieberman is reportedly concerned that Netanyahu might seek to bring Livni into a national unity government to placate the US and prop up the legitimacy of his coalition.

The Labor Party has threatened to quit the government if Kadima does not join by the end of September, and Livni is reported to want the foreign ministry.

Lieberman's position is further threatened by a series of corruption investigations.

However, he also appears keen to take the initiative from both Washington and Livni with his own "peace plan." An unnamed aide to Lieberman told the Jerusalem Post that, with a vacuum in the diplomatic process, the foreign minister "thinks he can convince the government to adopt the plan."

However, Warschawski said there were few indications that Netanyahu wanted to be involved in any peace process, even Lieberman's.

Last week Uzi Arad, the government's shadowy national security adviser and a long-time confidant of Netanyahu, made a rare public statement at a meeting of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem to attack Livni for "political adventurism" and believing in the "magic" of a two-state solution.

Apparently reflecting Netanyahu's own thinking, he said: "The more you market Palestinian legitimacy, the more you bring about a detraction of Israel's legitimacy in certain circles. [The Palestinians] are accumulating legitimacy, and we are being delegitimized."

Warschawski doubted that Lieberman believed his blueprint for population exchanges could be implemented but was promoting it chiefly to further damage the standing of Israel's Palestinian citizens and advance his own political ambitions.

In his commentary, Lieberman said the international community's peace plan would lead to "the one-and-a-half to half state solution": "a homogeneous, pure Palestinian state," from which Jewish settlers were expelled, and "a bi-national state in Israel," which included many Palestinian citizens.

Palestinians, in both the territories and inside Israel, he said, could not "continue to incite against Israel, glorify murder, stigmatize Israel in international forums, boycott Israeli goods and mount legal offensives against Israeli officials."

International law, he added, sanctioned the partition of territory in which ethnic communities were broken up into different states, including in the case of the former Yugoslavia. "In most cases there is no physical population transfer or the demolition of houses, but creating a border where none existed, according to demographics," he wrote.

Surveys have shown that Palestinian citizens are overwhelming opposed to "population transfer" schemes like Lieberman's.

Critics note that Lieberman has failed to show how the many Palestinian communities inside Israel that are located far from the Green Line could be incorporated into a Palestinian state without expulsions.

Legal experts also point out that, even if Israel managed to trade territory as part of a peace agreement, stripping Palestinians of their Israeli citizenship as a result of such a deal would violate international law.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. A version of this article appeared in The National published in Abu Dhabi. It is reprinted here with the author's permission.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

One of JPN's editors, Rela Mazali, has written a wonderful piece, explaining why BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) are essential tools right now in the struggle to re-shape Israel. She notes that within Israel, BDS efforts are already bearing some fruit: "It is working where years of other civil society strategies have achieved far too little. For the first time in a very long while, many Israelis around me are sitting up and taking notice: Notice that there is still an occupation in place 43 years down the line, an occupation "out there" beyond their "normal" lives and beyond the self-perpetuated "existential threat." Notice that millions the world over believe "ordinary" Israelis -- both personally and collectively -- have something to do with this occupation. Notice that it just may turn out to be too costly."

She ends with this powerful statement: "BDS is a means to justice for those to whom it has been denied. Not against, but rather for, both Israel and Palestine, it aims to end the policies destroying the lives of Palestinians and devouring the humanity of Israelis. BDS supports the livable, viable futures of all the people of this land."

What to do when the country I live in totally loses its compass? Totally loses its shame? What to do when the regime that collects my taxes uses them to deploy its high-tech military, armed to the teeth, against activists sailing to oppose a criminal siege? When this country's politicians authorize soldiers to shoot-to-kill into a deck-bound crowd? And then tell me they are protecting me? What to do when the governments of the world are too deeply implicated to hold this regime, this country accountable?

I have watched government after government in Israel present itself as a respectable, normal member of the club of developed countries; open, democratic, cultured and liberal. Israel recently launched a major "re-branding" campaign, emphasizing diversity, richness, creativeness, to divert attention away from its warring belligerence. Israel's leaders are deeply committed to keeping up their positive self-image.

I have noted the special privileges granted time and again on the pretext of this image. The US awards Israel billions every year for "defense" in the form of planes, missiles, guns and ammunition. Just this May, the organization of so-called developed countries (OECD) granted Israel full membership, after years of Israeli lobbying. Israel bases its equal footing in such clubs on its claim to democracy.

It is time for us all to hold it to that claim. Accountable. Not only privilege-able. Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to end the occupation, reject, and actively remove, Israel's mask of "business as usual."

Each of us, each of you, can draw the line through BDS and act as a caring, responsible citizen of the world. To end Israel's 43-year-old occupation. To end the unacceptable, criminal siege of Gaza. To end racist laws and policies inside Israel, openly targeting the Palestinian citizens of Israel. To end more than sixty years of ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people.

Inside Israel, BDS has already started to work. It is working where years of other civil society strategies have achieved far too little. For the first time in a very long while, many Israelis around me are sitting up and taking notice: Notice that there is still an occupation in place 43 years down the line, an occupation "out there" beyond their "normal" lives and beyond the self-perpetuated "existential threat." Notice that millions the world over believe "ordinary" Israelis -- both personally and collectively -- have something to do with this occupation. Notice that it just may turn out to be too costly.

For weeks now, dozens of items in Israeli media have reported on BDS developments, speculating on its chances and consequences. Israel's cabinet recently addressed the boycott of settlement goods by the Palestinian Authority. In May, a Harvard professor warned a Tel Aviv University conference of the grave strategic threat of Israel's crumbling legitimacy. Ignoring the country's record, he chalked up waning legitimacy to BDS, blaming individual activists who, he actually implied, were traitors. BDS activists in Israel regularly receive veiled and less veiled threats, including one recent death threat, in the media, through employers' reprimands, in the form of (so far) threatened legal suits, through university email lists and colleagues' petitions. A new bill making its way through Israel's legislature would criminalize support for BDS, past or present -- turning this op-ed into incriminating evidence against its author. Israel's minister of education has preempted legislation,already pledging punishment for academics who support BDS. All this is clear evidence that BDS has started to make its mark on society here in Israel.

Meanwhile, internationally, civil society organizations are passing resolutions in support of BDS -- trade unions, student bodies, municipalities, football teams, even one government -- in Norway, South Africa, Britain, New Hampshire, California, Sweden, France.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society groups came together to voice a powerful joint call for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. Activist groups all over the world and inside Israel have subscribed to this call and declared their support. BDS is a political tool claimed and operated by international civil society where other tools seem ineffective; When international institutions and governments are failing; When a long overdue need to end severe oppression is not being met. Today BDS may be the only non-violent tool capable of moving Israel beyond its patterns of militarized brutality.

Courageously and creatively, BDS faces violence with a firm commitment to non-violence. It stands in solidarity first and foremost with Palestinians, and then with humanity -- with the thousands of internationals and Israelis who have chosen nonviolent resistance as their means to oppose and end the oppression of Palestine.

A tool, a strategy, not an end in itself, BDS is meant to work. As it did in the past when a 1953 boycott of segregated buses jump-started the crucial years of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States; when the African American community of Baton Rouge boycotted and faced down a Louisiana court ruling; when, two years later, Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a Montgomery bus and initiated the Montgomery bus boycott; when the massive school boycott in 1965 galvanized the movement again in Cook County, as more than 100,000 African American students stayed home from disgraceful schools despite a court injunction; when the world movement to resist South African apartheid gradually gained ground throughout the sixties to the dismay of successive US and British governments; when this movement kept growing, refusing to go away.

Today, BDS can make it increasingly difficult for Israel's government to keep up the occupation and the internal repression. Hiking up costs, it can make occupying unprofitable and racism disgraceful. Meanwhile, and no less important, it is already allowing Israeli society a clear reality check, reflecting what it looks like to international civil society, and capturing what it has become.

BDS is a means to justice for those to whom it has been denied. Not against, but rather for, both Israel and Palestine, it aims to end the policies destroying the lives of Palestinians and devouring the humanity of Israelis. BDS supports the livable, viable futures of all the people of this land.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The ongoing militarization of state (read: Jewish, non-orthodox) education in Israel has been among the major civic issues addressed by New Profile from the outset. The current minister of education, Gideon Sa'ar, provides an extremely blatant example of this ongoing process. Not hesitating in the least to openly defy democratic principles such as freedom of speech, he banned New Profile speakers from schools several months ago. This is and was part of his (pointedly headline producing) smear campaign terrorizing the young eighteen year olds legally exempted from military service, whom he systematically slanders as "shirkers". Now, he is spearheading a witch hunt against university faculty who support international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as a means for ending occupation and oppression. Oblivious to the McCarthyism condemned by such a mainstream figure such as the rector of Haifa University, he proceeds to make up and hunt out "enemies" of the educational system,playing outpost commander rather than minister in charge of a key civil society system. While this, on one level, seems ludicrous and laughable, Sa'ar's subscription to the type of hate propaganda invented and distributed by organizations clearly operating along fascist lines should not be lightly dismissed and must be taken very seriously.

The item below reports on the minister's newly publicized punitive campaign. A second folloup report on the critical responses of various Israeli academics, including leading mainstream figures, is missing (at least so far) ffrom Haaretz's English version.

Gideon Sa'ar says government will act during the summer against academics who joined call for Israel boycott.

By Or Kashti

A few days after saying he intends to take action against Israeli professors who call for an academic boycott of Israel, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar is scheduled to appear on Monday before the Knesset Education Committee to discuss the limits of freedom of expression in schools.

Sa'ar refused to provide Haaretz with details of what action he plans to take. His statements, made in the Knesset plenum Wednesday, "speak for themselves," a spokesperson said.

The comments came some time after Ben-Gurion University Professor Neve Gordon, a vocal proponent of an academic boycott against Israel, received a death threat through the mail.

The principals of two Tel Aviv high schools, Zeev Dagani and Ram Cohen, who have publicly criticized the government's policies in the territories, have also been invited to today's committee meeting.

Dagani, the principal of the Herzliya Gymnasia high school, has publicly opposed Sa'ar's plan to send Israel Defense Forces officers into classrooms to encourage students to enlist in the army, and Cohen has often lectured his students about the Israeli occupation.

The panel will also discuss the Islamic Movement's influence on students in Arab schools.

In last week's comments, Sa'ar said it was "important to examine the issues" raised in a report by on-campus Zionist advocacy group Im Tirtzu that alleges that anti-Zionist trends have taken root in political science instruction at Israel's universities. However, Sa'ar would not say whether he would indeed look into the accusations.

Sa'ar's statements were part of a discussion in the Knesset plenum initiated by MKs Uri Ariel (National Union ) and Yulia Shamalov Berkovich (Kadima ) on the issue of "the post-Zionist takeover of Israeli academia." The discussion was prompted by the Im Tirtzu report, which stated that 80 percent of the research papers taught at political science courses in Israeli universities are "anti-Zionist and anti-nationalist." The report was roundly criticized by academics and public figures, but Im Tirtzu officials said they stood behind the study.

"Israeli academia apparently suffers from 'Palestinomania,' a mild psychological illness whose symptoms include self-hatred, an affinity for Israel's enemies, Jewish anti-Semitism and/or anti-Zionism," Shamalov Berkovich said in the Knesset. "The spread of 'Palestinomania' demands the immediate and painful treatment for all of our sake, and the sooner the better."

Ariel called on Sa'ar to establish a ministerial inquiry to probe the accusations contained in Im Tirtzu's report.

Sa'ar said: "I think that the Im Tirtzu report is important in the sense that it generates public debate. It is important to examine the issues raised in the report."

In his statements to the plenum, Sa'ar referred specifically to professors who have backed calls to boycott Israeli universities.

"This is something that is impossible to accept," Sa'ar said. "I have already spoken about this with the head of the Higher Education Council's planning and budgeting committee [Manuel Trajtenberg], and there will be measures taken vis-a-vis the heads of these institutions. This matter is on our agenda - and we plan on taking action over the course of the summer."

Ariel seemed to understand Sa'ar as saying he plans to investigate the charges. His office released a statement reading: "The education minister said that he plans on thoroughly probing the charges made by Im Tirtzu this coming summer."

A spokesperson for Trajtenberg refused to comment when reached by Haaretz, deferring to Sa'ar's office.

"It would behoove the education minister to ignore the report, which emits an aroma of McCarthyism," said Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, the rector of the University of Haifa. "I hope he will understand the gravity of the very fact of monitoring and informing on lecturers, and of whether he even needs to take seriously an organization like Im Tirtzu, which causes incitement." Earlier this year Sa'ar took part in a conference organized by Im Tirtzu. "I place great importance in this gathering," he said. "Campus activism is hugely vital, and this is what you are doing. For this, you will be blessed." "I very much appreciate this work, which gives expression to an authentic Zeitgeist felt by the public and is much needed on our campuses," Sa'ar said of Im Tirtzu. "I came to tell you: God speed."

The article touches on the similarities - AND differences between the holocaust and what's happening to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (as well as the growing incipient fascism in Israel itself). To my mind, Surasky hits just the right balance in NOT equating the two periods, while at the same time pointing the relevant similarities. She says, in part:"In Nazi Germany, the reign of Hitler was 12 years and before the Final Solution, the agenda to exterminate an entire people, you had a gradual legalized crushing and tightening of people's lives. And there are Jews who we have worked with and Jews who lived through that time and they say "look, you can't compare the systematic extermination in terms of the deaths of people. But I lived through that experience of dehumanization, of the crushing of people's freedom and spirit. And there are things that are similar." The culture of collaborators that Israel creates to monitor and divide people. The black market that has emerged in Gaza similar to those in the ghettos. The sickness. The way those with money find a way to survive and perhaps even profit, and those without have little recourse. The slow death by bureaucracy and laws—in the West Bank farmers need multiple permits just to farm their own land- no guns are needed to destroy a family.

The crackdown on human rights activists in Israel right now- the midnight raids and media gag orders on arrests of Israeli citizens, banning people like Noam Chomsky from the country simply because of their ideas, attempts to shut down human rights organizations…. These are not the elements of a healthy democracy. These are signs of an incipient fascism. And I use that word because our many friends on the ground in Israel use that word now."

The interview also touches at some length at the developments in the US within the Jewish community, where there is a clear trend for the young generation to move away from the world-view of its parents (and grand parents). Organizations like the ADL are becoming more and more isolated, even as they're still seen as representing US Jews. - NOT!

Surasky's words are really powerful, and in my view are very much to the point. One issue on which I'd like to have seen more nuance is the oppression of Jews in the diaspora. The term employed in the interview describes Jews as a "historically hunted/oppressed people". Yet, while that was often true, it wasn't always true, and there is a significant difference between how Jews got treated in the Middle East and North Africa, and how they got treated in Europe. The reason I think it's important to mention this is that if Jewish experience in the diaspora was invariably one of misery, then this supports the idea that the only place Jews might have security is Israel.

Racheli Gai.

Echoes From The Warsaw Ghetto In Gaza

An Interview with Cecilie Surasky By Christiana Voniati

19 June, 2010Countercurrents.org

Gazing at letters that her grandmother wrote from the Warsaw Ghetto before she was killed , Deputy Director of the global organization "Jewish Voice for Peace", Cecilie Surasky, discusses Israel's "anti-Jewish" crimes and the inescapable comparison between the sufferings of Gazans and the gradual crushing of Jewish life in the Nazi ghettos in the period that led to the Final Solution . More significantly, the Jewish activist for peace reveals and explores the relationship between Jewish collective trauma and Israel 's aggression

"Jewish Voice for Peace" is based in the United States of America . Was this choice of location intentional?

We are based in the US and we have one hundred thousand people on our supporter list, mostly in the United States but certainly across Israel , Canada and all over the world. We think it is important to be in the United States because most of the terrible things you see happening in Israel (the expansion of settlements and taking of land, the attack on Gaza , the construction of the wall, attacks on human rights activists) couldn't happen without US support.

We pay for it with billions in aid, we offer Israel diplomatic protection in the UN, and we have many Jewish and Christian Zionist institutional leaders in this country who are very vocal about defending Israel unconditionally. They want the US government to continue to give Israel permission to do whatever it likes including violating international law. And unfortunately, the majority of members of Congress are only too happy to oblige. The U.S. Congress, which is largely made up of Christians by the way, is shamefully committed to giving the Israeli government whatever they want. With relatively few exceptions, they have very little regard for Palestinian life or for Israeli life for that matter since this unconditional support is so destructive to Israel and to Jews everywhere.

That's why we think one of the most important places after Israel , to have a strong and powerful Jewish voice for peace, justice and equality, is in the United States . Once we stop sending billions of dollars in military aid with no strings attached, once we stop diplomatically protecting Israel in international bodies when they violate the law, Israel will have to change. This movement is primarily about accountability and ending the attitude of exceptionalism which allows Israel to consistently violate the human rights of Palestinians, and increasingly its own citizens, with impunity.

At Jewish Voice for Peace, our values are pretty simple: Full equality for Israelis and Palestinians. There is absolutely no difference between the value of life of my 7 year old son and the value of life of my Palestinian friend's child. They are equally precious and have the same rights to health, education, to safety and well-being. Palestinians have a right to land which is justly theirs without having it stolen from beneath their feet. But the Israeli government has absolutely no respect for their rights. New settlements are built every day on Palestinian land. Even president Obama has said this theft of land must stop, but the Israeli government refuses.

Nonetheless, the western media represents Arab life as being less "grievable" than that of a western or Jewish life…

One of the most important things about doing this work is the connections that we make, as Jews, as Muslims, as Arabs or Westerners. And what you discover when you connect on a human basis is that we are remarkably similar. We value the same things. All people really want is to be connected to their family, to have work that means something to them, to have education and joy in their lives. It's very simple when you break it down. I know there is a long history of western racism, colonialism and Orientalism and we see ourselves as being superior to people all over the world. The only way to break down that false thinking to help people connect to each other, and it's a revelation when you do.

One of the things to remember is that the very idea of international law and human rights is a product of WWII. It was institutionalized because of WWII, because of Hitler, because of what happened with the Nazis and to the Jews. And Jews like Rene Cassin were among the pioneers of this idea, that all people are equal and equally deserving of certain basic rights. Today, we know this, whether they are gay, disabled, whether they are black or white or Muslim or Jew: this is the foundational framework for human rights advocacy,

So it is particularly appalling and outrageous to see 60 years later many Jewish organizations actually working to undermine this idea of international human rights. This goes against an incredibly important Jewish tradition and it's a violation of everything we stand for and it's anti-Jewish in the end. There was a time when much of the Jewish institutional world realized that freedom for one person required freedom for all. That if you let bigotry and hatred against one group to stand, eventually it would come and take you. All of our fates are intertwined, let us not forget this. Jewish Voice for Peace is holding onto and celebrating this tradition. We are actively opposed to groups that are trying to undermine international law as a way to keep Israel from being accountable.

Exactly because of your fate as Jews, as a historically hunted people, one would expect that you would be the first to recognize the human rights of Palestinians.

Yes, historically, Jews are a hunted people. Some people survived and some others didn't and that's true for most of us. Yes there is a huge tradition of taking from that lesson and realizing that "Never Again" means never again for everyone. Period. Fullstop. "Never Again" is a phrase we say for the Holocaust. "Never Again" genocide, "Never Again" slavery. And the truth is that in the United States , Jews are one of the most liberal voting blocks. Somewhere around 80% of Jews voted for Obama. We contribute in this country to many of the most important human and civil rights causes. So that tradition is alive and well. But in the case of Palestine and Israel , many in our community simply have blinders. We call it PEP, Progressive Except Palestine.

You don't have to compare what happened to Palestinians in Gaza to the Holocaust to make it seem more important than it already is. It already is so important and so unique in its own way.

The Holocaust was a systematic, well planned extermination of millions of people… And it was six million Jews but it was 11 million people altogether. The other 5 million were homosexuals, socialists, artists, intellectuals, people with disabilities. Obviously in the case of Gaza and the Occupied Territories we don't have anything like that. But I do think that people do draw lessons from the rise of the Nazis.

In Nazi Germany, the reign of Hitler was 12 years and before the Final Solution, the agenda to exterminate an entire people, you had a gradual legalized crushing and tightening of people's lives. And there are Jews who we have worked with and Jews who lived through that time and they say "look, you can't compare the systematic extermination in terms of the deaths of people. But I lived through that experience of dehumanization, of the crushing of people's freedom and spirit. And there are things that are similar." The culture of collaborators that Israel creates to monitor and divide people. The black market that has emerged in Gaza similar to those in the ghettos. The sickness. The way those with money find a way to survive and perhaps even profit, and those without have little recourse. The slow death by bureaucracy and laws—in the West Bank farmers need multiple permits just to farm their own land- no guns are needed to destroy a family.

The crackdown on human rights activists in Israel right now- the midnight raids and media gag orders on arrests of Israeli citizens, banning people like Noam Chomsky from the country simply because of their ideas, attempts to shut down human rights organizations…. These are not the elements of a healthy democracy. These are signs of an incipient fascism. And I use that word because our many friends on the ground in Israel use that word now.

I have letters of my great grandmother –I am looking at them right now sitting at my desk- from the Warsaw ghetto. That's where she was tortured to death and she wrote these letters to my grandparents asking for help. And I have letters from friends in Gaza . The tone of the letters feels similar to me. They're prisoners. They're trapped. They don't have enough food or supplies. They want help getting young relatives out. And they don't know what may happen the next day- a bomb, a lethal attack. And mostly, a sense that the world doesn't care. I am deeply haunted by that common message I heard from my great grandmother in the Ghetto and from people I've known in Gaza .

Of course we see the echoes of that and of course Jews in Israel are a traumatized people. But the problem is, it doesn't help to compare Gaza to the Holocaust. Eleven million people are not being systematically slaughtered in Gaza . But what you do have is, as I said, a kind of a slow destruction of a culture, a slow destruction of life. It's a slow ethnic cleansing that is not only killing people but destroying families, destroying spirits, destroying an entire culture with a cruel and callous deliberate intention that causes massive unnecessary suffering on almost every level. They are literally prisoners. And that doesn't need to be compared to the Holocaust to know how horrible and immoral and outrageous it is and how it must be stopped.

Operation Cast Lead killed some 1,400 people and injured countless others. The attack didn't just kill civilians including children, it terrorized an entire population of 1.5 million. It sent them a message that they can never be safe, they cannot protect their families. The level of dehumanization required to justify this kind of treatment of an imprisoned population of 1.5 million people is terrifying. Of course when I hear Israeli government officials use almost identical language that Nazis used to describe Jews, calling Palestinians a virus or bug that must be eradicated, it gives me terrible chills. That process of dehumanization is universal….it has happened in every corner of the earth, and the lesson is that Jews are just as capable as everyone else. We are not better or worse. We are the same.

As Jews, we have an obligation to strengthen and nurture the tradition within our community that struggles for peace and justice, and win out over this other culture that has taken over in the Jewish tradition that is traumatized and fear-based and supports Israel no matter what and really cultivates fear and hatred. It is a struggle within our very own community. I promise you, there's not one Jewish family that is not divided on this issue. There is a huge Jewish closet and people are finally starting to come out.

You say that the Jewish opposition to Israel 's criminal policies is quite strong, and yet those voices don't come out through the media. The only voices that do come out of Israel and the United States are quite reactionary and belligerent. Why is this?

In Israel the Left is much smaller than it used to be, and there are historical reasons for this, most of which are relevant to the colossal failure of the Oslo Accords. But things are changing, especially outside Israel . The numbers of people who are joining our struggle for peace in the Jewish community are rising dramatically. There's a lot of struggle happening in the Jewish world right now, more than we have ever seen since the founding of Israel . Jews are finally taking off their blinders and at least starting to ask questions.

But most people don't know this, and I will tell you why. Because we have all these dinosaurs running all the powerful Jewish organizations in this country who have been there forever. They are funded by an older generation that supports them and has a lot of money. And I am talking about people like Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League or David Harris of the American Jewish Committee. We don't have a spokesperson. Every Jewish community, every Jewish person has a different opinion. But the closest thing we have from visible Jewish representation are people like Abraham Foxman and he is from a completely different generation. Nobody under 45 identifies with him. But there is a generational change that is happening which isn't visible yet. Because the older people are dominating the airways. But that generation is going to have to leave the stage sooner or later.

How do you deal with people coming and criticizing you for anti-Semitism?

Since we started, we have been getting hate mail and death threats. Some said: "you should have burned in the ovens". Interestingly enough, we get much less of it now, while our movement is growing. I won't lie to you; it has been very difficult to do what we have been doing, because we are also all struggling in our own families. As I have said before, there is not one Jewish family in the world that is not divided on this. But things are changing. What is extremely important is that younger Jews are educating and opening the eyes of the older generation. They go to school, they learn the facts and then they go back home and try to educate their parents. But we need to remember, it's not malicious. It's just that many elderly are closer to the memory of the Holocaust. (We also have many members over 60 who are absolutely clear about supporting Palestinian equal rights.) They lived the horror. It's easier for them to see enemies everywhere. But, like in your case withTurkish-Cypriots, so do we, with our Arab neighbors, share the same physical closeness and genetic closeness. Young people are beginning to realize this more and more and they try to deconstruct their parents false and phobic convictions and it's then that you realize how identity is constructed and even false. We need to collectively write a new national narrative.

We're told that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about terrorism or anti-Jewish hatred or the need for security. And we believe it because Jews have been so persecuted for so many generations.

But it's a false narrative. It's not really about any of those things, not at its most basic core. It's about land, and Israel 's constant thirst for more and more land that people already happen to live on. Israel wants the land but not the people, hence the strategy of making life miserable so that those Palestinians who can leave will do so. The rest? Israel is basically offering them open-air prisons. This is the real narrative.

Israeli Jew[s], because of the Holocaust, because they are historically a hunted and persecuted people, wrote a national narrative that has literally integrated into the DNA of Israel which is: "The world hates us!" That is the narrative and so they feel that the world hates them, they act like the world hates them. And when things like this happen, when international public opinion is outraged about the attack on Gaza or the attack on the flotilla, they just say "See, we told you they hate us". And it becomes almost self-fulfilling in the end.

Of course, part of the problem is that anti-Semitism is very real. There are many people who do hate Jews, and those who would like to see us disappear. The Palestinian freedom movement is so clearly first and foremost motivated by a desire to see justice for Palestinians. And my experience with Palestinian leadership is that they have been extremely sensitive about making sure that genuine anti-Semites do not gain a foothold in the movement. There will always be people who hate Jews, or gays, or Muslims etc…, but I think any of us seriously committed to universal human rights must guard against anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish hatred in all of its forms. The answer to bigotry is not more bigotry. It's acceptance, and the creation of new communities based not on skin color but on values of universal equality. We should interrupt anti-Jewish or anti-Muslim rhetoric wherever we see it.

There can be no Jewish liberation without Palestinian liberation. It is so clear. We are enslaved by this dynamic, just as they are. We have become psychologically enslaved to our fear and our bigotry and Jewish Voice for Peace and the Jewish Liberation Movement is struggling to free our community from the grip of fear and trauma and to celebrate the wonderful diversity and richness of Jewish tradition that puts social justice for ALL people back at its center where it belongs.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

The letter below, from human rights defender, Ameer Makhoul, was released and distributed today by Makhoul's family and friends. It was written on May 30th, after Makhoul had spent 3 weeks in prison without access to even pen and paper, not to speak of lawyers, family visits, due process, humane and legal conditions. It made it's way to his home by snailmail and then the original Arabic was translated into English.

As a long time activist, here in Israel, I am both dismayed and determined these days; Dismayed at how the state I share in proceeds, with great speed, to discard remaining vestiges of democratic governance. Determined to continue resisting this process with all the means at the disposal of activists and civil society.

For comprehensive information on the interrogation and almost definite torture of Makhoul and Said as well as contact information for taking action, see: http://freeameermakhoul.blogspot.com/. I hope that each of you will spread the information further and take action in other ways.

After being allowed to get a pen and a piece of paper, which has been banned for the last three weeks, and after being allowed to get out of my total isolation, it's a moment to write a short letter from my jail (Gilboa).

It's a great opportunity for me to express my sincere thanks, greetings & appreciation to all the colleagues, friends and solidarity groups, organizations & persons, internationals, Arabs in the region, Israelis & Palestinians in the homeland & in the Diaspora. A very special salute to all those who visited my family and supported them after the trauma they passed in May 6 & since that late night.

It's a moment to express my great appreciation to all the international & local human rights organizations which raised their voices loudly.

Also to Ittijah partner organizations all around the world which supported my/our struggle for justice and for a fair trial in order to get to prove my innocence.

Physically I am still suffering very much but morally it's a great feeling to know what solidarity means.

My story is that the Israeli intelligence, "the shabak", assumed something without knowing & without any evidence. I was requested and forced to explain to them in a very detailed way how exactly I did what I didn't do, ever. In case of any logical problem for them to complete the puzzle, they have the legal tools to fill it in by so-called secret evidence, which my lawyers and I have no legal right to know about.

According to the media in Israel, I'm already guilty, a terrorist & a supporter terror. The rule of the game here is that I'm guilty whether or not I prove that I'm not. This collective assumption is prior to court & trial procedures.

The abuse of evidence & fair legal procedures are crucial. The Shabak can tell lies to the court by so called "secret evidence", "banning meetings with lawyers", "banning the publication of information," "imposing total isolation" & other very sophisticated ways of torture, which leave no direct evidence although it is very harsh. (See Adalah: www.adalah.org). I believe that my case is an opportunity to examine these tools as tools for the criminalization of human rights defenders.

I would like to highlight again your support & solidarity. I look to it as a very essential & crucial message of support the victim and to stop the oppressor. Thank you. Let us continue with the way for justice, human dignity, human rights and ensuring an opportunity for a fair trial.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Abraham Greenhouse is founder of the Palestine Freedom Project (palestinefreedom.org), which specializes in studying and providing support for the work of grassroots Palestine solidarity activists worldwide.

Nora Barrows-Friedman is an award-winning independent journalist, writing for The Electronic Intifada, Inter Press Service, Truthout and other outlets. She regularly reports from Palestine, where she also runs media workshops for youth in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

In the article below they do the best job to date (as far as I know) of rounding up the various allegations made by Israel to "explain" what happened on the flotilla boats, and the work by independent journalists to expose the lies, inconsistencies, and claims made by Israel that have no evidence to support them."Determined not to allow the Israeli government to continue dominating public discourse on the flotilla attack with its questionable version of events, independent journalists around the world analyzed and identified inconsistencies with the Israeli narrative. This work played a pivotal role in making a more complete and accurate picture of the events available to an English-speaking audience: the vast majority of English-language corporate media outlets, with the notable exception of Al-Jazeera English, simply restated Israeli claims and conducted little or no investigative work to ascertain their validity."

"The systematic attempt and very deliberate first priority for the Israeli soldiers as they came on the ships was to shut down the story, to confiscate all cameras, to shut down satellites, to smash the CCTV cameras that were on the Mavi Marmara, to make sure that nothing was going out. They were hellbent on controlling the story," commented Australian journalist Paul McGeough, one of the hundreds of activists and reporters who witnessed the deadly morning attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May ("Framing the Narrative: Israeli Commandos Seize Videotape and Equipment from Journalists After Deadly Raid," Democracy Now, 9 June 2010). McGeough was one of at least 60 journalists aboard the flotilla who were detained and their footage confiscated.

Within hours of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla being intercepted and besieged in international waters by Israeli commandos, who killed at least nine -- some at point-blank range -- aboard the Mavi Marmara, news of the bloody attack had spread across the globe. Rage, condemnation and calls for an international investigation followed.

Meanwhile, Israel's campaign to spin the attack, distort the facts and quell an outraged public was already in full swing. Concurrently, activists and skeptical journalists began deconstructing the official story and assembling evidence to uncover the truth behind the violent deaths of activists on a humanitarian mission to the besieged Gaza Strip.

From the time the Israeli military apparently jammed the flotilla's communications, and for the next 48 hours as survivors were held incommunicado, their cameras and potentially incriminating footage seized, Israel's account of the raid dominated international headlines.

Central to Israel's media strategy was the rapid release of selected video and audio clips which, the government said, validated its claim that passengers had violently attempted to kill troops without provocation -- thereby forcing the soldiers to use live fire in self-defense. However, the initially and most widely-distributed clips bore signs of heavy editing, including the obscuring or removal of time stamps.

Although the clips apparently depicted passengers aboard the Mavi Marmarahitting Israeli troops with poles and other objects, the context of the images was completely unclear. It was impossible to determine at what point during the assault the clips had been filmed, raising questions about exactly which party had been acting in self-defense.

Al-Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, among others, corroborated accounts by other flotilla passengers, including Israeli Knesset member Hanin Zoabi, that the Israeli commandos had allegedly started firing before commandos began rappelling to the deck of the ship ("MK Zoabi: Israel wanted highest number of fatalities," YNet, 1 June 2010; "Kidnapped by Israel, forsaken by Britain," Al-Jazeera, 6 June 2010).

These clips were quickly supplemented by footage put on YouTube, also heavily edited, which Israel said had been taken from the ship's security cameras and from the journalists whose equipment had been seized ("Flotilla Rioters Prepare Rods, Slingshots, Broken Bottles and Metal Objects to Attack IDF Soldiers," 2 June 2010). The Israeli military spokesperson's office also distributed numerous still images allegedly documenting fighting on the deck.

After the commandeered flotilla ships were brought to the Israeli port of Ashdod and were unloaded, on 1 June the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) began distributing via the Flickr website photographs of objects it said were found aboard. Materials the MFA classified as "weapons"-- thus supposedly supporting its claim that activists had planned to conduct a "lynching" of Israeli troops -- were identifiable to the public as standard nautical equipment and kitchen utensils ("Weapons found on Mavi Marmara").

In addition, the ships were inspected multiple times prior to setting sail for Gaza, both by Turkish customs authorities and by an independent security firm, and had been found at both points to contain no weapons, according to a Free Gaza Movement press release ("Did Israel deliberately murder civilians aboard Freedom Flotilla?," 3 June 2010). Participants also say that all passengers were subject to thorough security checks before boarding, regardless of where they embarked.

These photographs of "weapons" became the first flashpoint in the effort to analyze and expose inconsistencies in Israel's claims. Shortly after the release of the images which appeared on the MFA's official Flickr page on 1 June, commentators began calling attention to the fact that several of the images included digitally-encoded information indicating that they had been shot several years prior. The MFA responded to this by modifying the dates, and issuing a statement that one of its cameras had been incorrectly calibrated.

While this claim can be neither confirmed nor disproved, the gaffe exposed the fact that Israel's rush to promote its version of events in the media was leading to significant mistakes and oversights. As surviving flotilla passengers began to be released and expelled following detention in Israel, the accounts they gave of events aboard the ships -- and on the Mavi Marmara in particular -- clearly diverged from the official Israeli narrative.

Journalists aboard the ship, some of whom had been able to broadcast via satellite for a limited time during the assault, told interviewers that they had been singled out for attack by Israeli troops. "We had cameras round our necks and our press cards in our hands, but the soldiers kept aiming the lasers of their guns at our eyes in order to intimidate us," Turkish journalist Yuecel Velioglu of the AA news agency told Reporters Without Borders ("As Turkish photographer is buried, other journalists aboard flotilla speak out," 9 June 2010).

In addition, much of the footage released by Israel (after heavy editing) was taken from journalists aboard the ship after their equipment had been confiscated. The move was strongly denounced by Israel's Foreign Press Association (FPA), which stated on 4 June: "the use of this material without permission from the relevant media organizations is a clear violation of journalistic ethics and unacceptable."

Determined not to allow the Israeli government to continue dominating public discourse on the flotilla attack with its questionable version of events, independent journalists around the world analyzed and identified inconsistencies with the Israeli narrative. This work played a pivotal role in making a more complete and accurate picture of the events available to an English-speaking audience: the vast majority of English-language corporate media outlets, with the notable exception of Al-Jazeera English, simply restated Israeli claims and conducted little or no investigative work to ascertain their validity.

Images and the elimination of context

Another photograph released by the Israeli military spokesperson's office aroused additional controversy when it began appearing in news articles about the incident. The image, which featured an anonymous, bearded man holding a curved knife, was generally presented with a caption, also sourced from the Israeli military, claiming that the knife-wielder was an activist aboard the Mavi Marmara photographed after Israeli troops boarded the ship.

Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, immediately noticed clear inconsistencies with the context of the photo, casting its veracity into doubt. Abunimah pointed out on his blog that behind the man, natural light could be seen streaming in through a window -- despite the fact that the raid was conducted during pre-dawn hours. Additionally, the man was surrounded by photographers who seemed unusually calm for onlookers in the midst of a firefight ("Israeli propaganda photo in Haaretz of man with knife make no sense #FreedomFlotilla," 31 May 2010). Finally, a few days after the image first appeared, the image was re-used in a video montage, published on YouTube under the newly-registered handle "gazaflotilliatruth", but this time with less cropping. In the new version of the image, the bearded man can be seen to be sitting down, not standing -- again, an unusual physical position to display during a melee ("Gaza Flotillia - The Love Boat," 2 June 2010).

Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal reports that the Israeli military-sourced caption -- repeatedly used by media outlets such as the Israeli daily Haaretz -- indicated that the bearded man was holding the knife after the commandos boarded the ship ("Nailed Again: IDF Description of Suspicious Photo It Distributed Is Retracted," 8 June 2010).

Following his query to the Israeli military spokesman's office, Haaretz "scrubbed its caption of the suspicious photo." Blumenthal adds that Haaretz "did not mention the retraction, probably assuming no one would notice. The retraction raises disturbing questions about the level of coordination between the IDF [Israeli army] and the Israeli media." Nor did they mention that the bearded man was Yemeni Minister of Parliament Mohammad al-Hazmi, who was displaying his ceremonial dagger -- an essential part of traditional Yemeni dress -- to "curious journalists and foreigners on the ship," as Blumenthal points out, obviously well before the attack.

New accusations instantly dismantled

As the accounts of surviving passengers began receiving increased attention in the mainstream Western press, Israel retaliated with a series of increasingly dire accusations to discredit them. The serious nature these accusations makes it difficult to understand why the Israeli government would have waited so long to issue them. As journalists began evaluating the new claims, they found Israel's supporting evidence to be flimsy and periodically even nonexistent.

One such accusation, published in a 2 June MFA press release, was that 40 Mavi Marmara passengers had been identified as mercenaries in the employ of al-Qaeda ("Attackers of the IDF soldiers found to be Al Qaeda mercenaries," 2 June 2010). Later that day, US State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley said that his office could not validate Israel's story, and independent journalists on the ground in Tel Aviv promptly set out to investigate for themselves.

Blumenthal and his colleague Lia Tarachansky were told bluntly by the Israeli army's press office that the military didn't "have any evidence" to support the MFA's contention. By the morning of 3 June, all references to al-Qaeda had been removed from the online version of the press release ("Under Scrutiny IDF Retracts Claims About Flotillas Al Qaeda Links").

More significantly, on 4 June, Israel released a YouTube clip which it claimed was an excerpt from radio communications between the Israeli navy and the Mavi Marmara. The clip included a voice telling the Israelis to "go back to Auschwitz," and another voice stating "We're helping Arabs go against the US," in response to Israeli statements that the vessel was "approaching an area which is under a naval blockade" ("Flotilla Ship to Israeli Navy: "We're Helping Arabs Go Against the US, Don't Forget 9/11 Guys," 4 June 2010). The latter statement was made in an accent resembling that of the American south, despite the fact that no one from that region was present aboard any of the ships. Numerous bloggers commented that the accents sounded as though they had been faked, and ridiculed the quality of the apparent forgery.

One of the flotilla organizers, US citizen Huwaida Arraf, was astonished to find that the clip included her own voice as well -- even though she had not been aboard the Mavi Marmara, but was on a different vessel. Tel Aviv-based journalist and blogger Mya Guarnieri noted that Arraf told the Bethlehem-based Maan News Agency that the clip of her voice, saying "we have permission from the Gaza Port Authority to enter," seemed to have been excerpted from communications during a previous flotilla trip (there have been nine trips since 2008) ("Israel under fire for doctoring flotilla recordings," 5 June 2010). "When they radioed us [on this trip], we were still 100 miles away," Arraf remarked.

Blumenthal called attention to the mysterious presence of Arraf and other discrepancies in the clip in an article he posted on 4 June. The following day, the MFA issued a statement admitting that the clip had been substantially edited ("Clarification/Correction Regarding Audio Transmission Between Israeli Navy and Flotilla on 31 May 2010," 5 June 2010). However, the clip including the "Auschwitz" statement remains on the MFA website in a new "unedited" version of the alleged transmission.

High-tech sleuthing uncovers a web of deceit

Perhaps most damaging to the credibility of Israeli accounts was a map published by Ali Abunimah on his blog and which was produced by using archived transmissions of Automatic Identification System (AIS) data to plot the position of the Mavi Marmara as it sailed on the morning of the raid ("Did Israel press on with bloody attack on Mavi Marmara even as ship fled at full-speed?," 7 June 2010). Using the map, Abunimah was able to determine the location and heading of the ship as it broadcast updates on its status. The map also plotted the position of the Mavi Marmara at the exact points when surveillance camera footage from the ship -- which Israel had released without obscured time stamps -- was apparently recorded.

According to AIS data, the Mavi Marmara had been heading south -- parallel to the Israeli coast and more than 80 miles from the shore -- until approximately 4:35am local time. At this point, the ship abruptly turned west, heading away from the Gaza coast.

The attack, which surviving passengers say began shortly after 4:00am, was reported to Greek activists in direct communication with the ship at some point before 4:51am. However, the time stamp seen in the released security camera footage and described in a caption as being the point at which "rioters initiate confrontation with Israeli soldiers," indicates that the clip was filmed at 5:03am. This is reinforced by the fact that the sea is apparently lit by natural light, which would not have been possible an hour earlier.

This evidence directly contradicts Israeli claims regarding the sequence and timing of events, and throws its overarching narrative into doubt. While the vast majority of footage of the raid has been seized by Israel, along the flotilla's Voyage Data Recorders (VDRs, the nautical equivalent of aircraft's "black boxes"), activists have been diligently archiving all available evidence to prevent Israel from altering or destroying it. As more time stamped data becomes available, it will be aggregated by activists and plotted on mapping applications not only to help reveal what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara, but guarantee a greater level of accountability when Israel responds to future flotillas.

A significant amount of data is already emerging. Several of the survivors managed to conceal memory cards from their Israeli captors, the contents of which they proceeded to make available to journalists upon their return home. Some photos, published in the Turkish newspaper HaberTurk, depict passengers administering medical care to wounded Israeli soldiers and even protecting them from being photographed -- which seemed to contradict Israel's claims that passengers were intent on a premeditated "lynching" of the Israeli commandoes ("İsrail'den kaçırılan fotoğraflar," 4 June 2010).

Recently-released video clips from flotilla survivors show Israeli soldiers kicking, beating and shooting passengers, including footage which Turkey's Cihan News Agency says depicts the close-range killing of Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old US citizen, with automatic weaponry ("Israeli Soldiers Murdering Man Identified as Furkan Dogan," 10 June 2010). An autopsy determined that Dogan was shot five times, including once in the back and twice in the head from almost point-blank range. Other footage shows helicopters hovering above the flotilla, with apparent muzzle flashes and sounds of gunfire, supporting the survivors' contention that commandos were already firing before boarding the vessels, thus prompting the limited resistance demonstrated by terrified passengers.

International vs. internal investigations

The Israeli government continues to reject the idea of an international investigation in favor of pursuing its own. On 5 June, the United Nation's Secretary General proposed an international panel to examine the killing of nine flotilla passengers, but Israel's ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, announced on FOX News the next day that Israel would refuse "to be investigated by any international board" ("Transcript: Amb. Michael Oren on 'FNS'," 7 June 2010).

Those who demand an international probe have good reason to doubt Israel's ability to investigate itself. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which cited statistics from the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, between 2000 and 2008, "Israeli soldiers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories killed more than 2,000 Palestinian civilians not involved in combat. Of 1,246 criminal investigations initiated during the same period into suspected offenses of all kinds by soldiers against Palestinian civilians, only 6 percent (78 cases) resulted in indictments. Only 13 of those indictments charged soldiers with killing civilians. As of September 2008, five soldiers had been convicted for the deaths of four civilians" ("Why No Justice in Gaza? Israel Is Different, and so ...," 1 October 2009).

HRW found a similar pattern in cases stemming from Israel's infamous three-week attack on Gaza beginning on 27 December 2008. The invasion, which caused the deaths of more than 1,400 Palestinians, resulted in only one criminal conviction -- for the theft of a credit card belonging to a Palestinian family after soldiers looted their home.

Regarding the flotilla attack, some sources in the Israeli government have indicated that they would consider permitting one or more international "observers" to be included in their internal investigation. Governments around the world have insisted that this is not an acceptable alternative to a genuine international investigation. However, even a completely impartial group charged with investigating the raid would be analyzing "evidence" (such as seized footage and VDRs) that had been under the full control of the Israeli military since the time of the assault.

Accountability and independent journalism

With little hope for a formal investigation with any degree of credibility, independent journalists around the world have recognized the need to mount their own. The work of independent journalists is achieving a growing level of influence in the mainstream. And the story of the Mavi Marmara killings, despite the unwillingness of many professional reporters to publicly challenge Israel's version of events, is no exception.

"This is an issue where, in the flotilla incident, the legal and moral circumstances of Israeli abuse were so flagrant and visible that independent media have a greater opportunity of being heard," said Richard Falk, international law expert and United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Should the UN or another impartial body mount an international probe, it would "benefit greatly from [independent media's] active undertaking to reinforce whatever investigation took place," Falk commented for this story.

Independent journalists have already succeeded in cracking the wall of Israel's narrative in the corporate media. For nearly an hour on the morning of 5 June, most mainstream reports about the status of the delayed fourth ship in the flotilla that had included the Mavi Marmara relied almost exclusively on information gleaned from messages shared between activists and independent journalists via Twitter. The work of Abunimah and Blumenthal in debunking much of the Israeli narrative was cited extensively in a post by The New York Times blogger Robert Mackey ("Photographs of Battered Israeli Commandos Show New Side of Raid," 7 June 2010).

On 10 June, a United Nations press conference was devoted to presenting uncensored footage of the assault captured by filmmaker Iara Lee, which promises to make global headlines with countless images contradicting the Israeli version of events.

Paul Larudee, a San Francisco Bay Area-based activist who participated in the flotilla and endured a severe beating which required him to him to be hospitalized, believes that the success of independent journalists in unraveling Israel's disjointed narrative has had a transformative effect on the popular consciousness.

"Something's happening here. Perceptions begin to move," Larudee said. "People are getting it -- they understand that a humanitarian aid convoy was attacked, and the passengers were defending themselves, despite the spin that Israel is creating in the media. Israel is not going to be able to keep this up much longer. It's all starting to crumble."

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A number of descendants of individuals buried in the Mamilla Cemetary - including 60 people from 15 of the oldest Jerusalem families - have submitted new information in an ongoing effort to stop construction on the site.Last week, the Petitioners and the Center for Constitutional Rights sent each member of the Board of Directors of the SWC (Simon Wiesenthal Center) a letter fully explaining the facts behind the case and calling for them to intervene, stating "that the ultimate responsibility for the continuation of this project now rests with the Board members, who are accountable to the public and private world for supporting this assault on common sense and decency."

Said CCR President Michael Ratner, "We have reached out to the board of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the hope that they will put a stop to the terrible irony of building a museum of tolerance on the site of a Muslim cemetery. Each board member who fails to act effectively condones the desecration of human remains and the violation of a sacred burial site."

Descendants File Key New Evidence with United Nations over Israeli Construction on 12th Century Muslim CemeterySimon Wiesenthal Center Vows to Build "Museum of Tolerance" Despite Mounting Opposition: Petitioners Appeal to Board of DirectorsContact: press@ccrjustice.orgJune 14, 2010, New York, Jerusalem, Geneva – Today, parties defending a 12th Century Muslim cemetery and holy site in Jerusalem from desecration by Israeli authorities and a U.S. financier submitted key updates and new evidence to UNESCO, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Special Rapporteurs, and the Swiss government.

The original Petition for Urgent Action was filed on February 10, 2010 in Geneva by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York on behalf of descendants of individuals buried in the Mamilla Cemetery, including 60 signatories from 15 of the oldest Jerusalem families. The Petitioners argue that disinterring thousands of Muslim graves and building a "Museum of Tolerance" by the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) on part of the cemetery violates international conventions protecting cultural heritage, the manifestation of religious beliefs, and the right to culture and family.

International reactions

The Addendum to the Petition submitted today highlights the widespread interest that the Petition has generated in the UN, the media, and among the public. This includes dozens of articles and other press reports around the globe, and the endorsement of 8700 individual co-petitioners that have joined a Public Petition in support. An investigative series published in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in May 2010 has confirmed with new evidence and exclusive photographs the arguments and evidence presented in the Petition and generated a new wave of public concern about the issue.

While the UN officials undertake the investigations requested of them in the Petition, the matter was taken up by the UN Human Rights Council, which adopted in March a strong resolution expressing "its grave concern at the excavation of ancient tombs and removal of hundreds of human remains from part of the historic Ma'man Allah (Mamilla) Cemetery in the holy city of Jerusalem in order to construct a museum of tolerance."

Meanwhile, Arab and Islamic Ambassadors in New York presented the Petition to the UN Security Council and met with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who promised to follow up with Israel and with UNESCO on the matter. In addition, the Swiss Foreign Minister endorsed the Petition and encouraged continued efforts to resolve the matter, stating in a letter to Petitioners that Switzerland "deplore[s] the decision to build such a museum on the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery" which "was not helpful with regard to fostering the peaceful cohabitation between the different faiths."

Said Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and the descendent of several individuals buried in Mamilla, "Our efforts to insure that the competent UN authorities fully address this issue will continue, and we intend to keep the campaign on the international agenda until Israel and the Simon Wiesenthal Center desist from this project that has desecrated an important Muslim and Palestinian cultural heritage site."

Petitioners Appeal to the Simon Wiesenthal Center

The Addendum to the Petition also refutes claims made by the SWC following the submission of the original Petition. New photographs presented in the Addendum show that ancient walls and tombs remain on the site, contrary to the SWC's claim that the several layers of graves and artifacts known to be on the site have already been removed by infrastructure works.

SWC also claims that an obscure 1945 Supreme Muslim Council proposal to build on the cemetery justifies the current project. This ignores the fact that the alleged plan was never sanctioned by legitimate Muslim scholars, since the Council at the time was appointed by British Mandate officials and had no authority to make judicial decisions about religious affairs. Nor did the idea gain traction or come anywhere near fruition. The Addendum also affirms that Petitioners, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, have initiated this wholly civil, voluntary and family-based effort with no affiliation to any political or other organizations.

Last week, the Petitioners and the Center for Constitutional Rights sent each member of the Board of Directors of the SWC a letter fully explaining the facts behind the case and calling for them to intervene, stating "that the ultimate responsibility for the continuation of this project now rests with the Board members, who are accountable to the public and private world for supporting this assault on common sense and decency."

Said CCR President Michael Ratner, "We have reached out to the board of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the hope that they will put a stop to the terrible irony of building a museum of tolerance on the site of a Muslim cemetery. Each board member who fails to act effectively condones the desecration of human remains and the violation of a sacred burial site."

The Mamilla Cemetery has been a Muslim burial ground and holy site since as early as the 7th century, when companions of the Prophet Muhammad were reputedly buried there. In addition, numerous Sufi saints and thousands of other officials, scholars, notables, and Jerusalemite families have been buried there over the last 1000 years. The cemetery was declared a historical and antiquities site by successive authorities in Jerusalem, including the Supreme Muslim Council, British Mandate and even Israeli authorities. It was an active burial ground until 1948, when the new State of Israel seized the western part of Jerusalem and the cemetery fell under Israeli control.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit www.ccrjustice.org.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Starhawk writes:"Organic gardeners know that if you respond to an attack by trying to kill the pests involved, you simply breed resistance while poisoning your own crops and soil. Instead, we ask, 'What conditions are allowing this pest to thrive?" "How do we change them, to favor the beneficial bugs and strengthen the health of the soil and the plants?" A smart and moral policy, from Israel's point of view, would be to say: "What are the conditions that would favor mutual cooperation and peace? What would give our allies a competitive edge, and undermine the hardliners?"

Israel's murderous attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has served to focus international attention on its longstanding, immoral siege of Gaza. Since the election of Hamas in 2007, Israel has tightened its hold on Gaza's borders, blocking essential goods from entering and Gazan products from leaving, effectively destroying Gaza's economy. Eight out of ten Gazans depend on international food aid to survive, and ninety-five per cent of its drinking water fails to meet safety standards for consumption. Seventy per cent of the population suffers from food insecurity. Thirteen per cent of the children of Gaza suffer stunted growth from malnutrition.

The blockade prevents Gazan patients who need specialized medical care from leaving, and stops students who receive scholarships from travelling abroad to study. Such harsh measures are immoral and illegal under international law, and in no way further Israel's security. They endanger Israel by generating resentment, frustration and anger, and create precisely the conditions which favor fanaticism and violence.

I'm a practicing Pagan, but there are values I deeply treasure from the Jewish religion I was born and raised in. The first is the stress on justice as the core of Jewish teaching. The second is the understanding that the oneness of God means that all people are cherished and equal in God's sight, that the same rules apply to all of us and the same rights are given to every person. By that definition, a "Jewish" state that persecutes and denies rights to another people is a heresy and a travesty of true Jewish values. A moral approach to the Gaza strip would be one that serves justice and assures the human rights of Palestinians, Jews, and everyone else.

From a Pagan perspective, we understand the deep, ancestral bond to the land that many Jews--and Palestinians---feel. But that bond does not need to be expressed through control or ownership. Attempts at control generally become devastating to land and people. Sovereignty, from a Pagan point of view, is contingent on responsibility, and a leader's job is not to issue orders and demand obedience, but to safeguard the health of the land, the fertility if its soil, the diversity of its wildlife and forests, and above all, to cherish the children, all of them--not just the children of one tribe.

A simple moral test might be this: "If children are suffering because of your political ends or the means you choose to achieve them, do something else." From both the Pagan and the Jewish points of view, actions that condemn children to a stunted life cannot be considered moral by any standards. Israel must lift the siege of Gaza in order to step back onto the beginnings of a moral path.

The Israeli government itself admits that the true purpose of the blockade is not security but economic warfare with a political aim. On June 9, the McClatchy newspapers obtained an Israeli document from Gisha, an Israeli human rights group which sued the Israeli government for information on the blockade. "A country has the right to decide... that it wishes to operate using 'economic warfare,'" the government said. Indeed, it is hard to imagine what security concerns would be imposed by chocolate or children's toys. Now, in the wake of international outrage, Israel has decided to allow in jam and cookies. The question remains--what possible security justification could there ever have been for keeping them out?

Organic gardeners know that if you respond to an attack by trying to kill the pests involved, you simply breed resistance while poisoning your own crops and soil. Instead, we ask, 'What conditions are allowing this pest to thrive?" "How do we change them, to favor the beneficial bugs and strengthen the health of the soil and the plants?"

Palestinians are a diverse people--as are Israelis. In my time in the West Bank and Gaza, I met true believers who were fanatically devout--and others who swore at "f-ing Hammas--they've closed the cinemas again!" I met some who believed in armed resistance and others who were deeply committed to nonviolence.

A smart and moral policy, from Israel's point of view, would be to say: "What are the conditions that would favor mutual cooperation and peace? What would give our allies a competitive edge, and undermine the hardliners?" Such policies would open borders, encourage of cooperative enterprises in commerce, learning, art and culture, foster a commitment to caring for and sharing the land and to create a opportunities for Palestinians to flourish and thrive.

Instead, Israel consistently employs a policy of force, collective punishment and intimidation that only serves to harden resistance. To treat all Gazans, all Palestinians, as if "Palestinian" were synonymous with "terrorist" is not only immoral, it's self-defeating. Prejudice always makes us stupid, for it prevents us from seeing diversity and complexity. Repression backfires.

Israel's decision to attack the Gaza Peace Flotilla with deadly force has squandered the world's good will and put Gaza front and center on the international agenda. As a bare minimum, Israel should release the film and video--and the thousands of dollars of equipment and cold, hard cash taken from the protestors and support an open, international, impartial investigation of the flotilla attack. Until she does, her account and her intentions will be suspect.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

ACCORDING TO RICHARD SILVERSTEIN, HE CONSULTED WITH AN EXPERT, AND IT SEEMS THAT THE NEW VIDEO ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED ON THE MAVI MARMARA HAS BEEN TEMPERED WITH. THIS DOESN'T MEAN THAT PEOPLE DIDN'T GET SHOT AND BEATEN, BUT VARIOUS DETAILS ARE IN QUESTION, INCLUDING THE ACTUAL ORDER OF EVENTS (IE: DID A CERTAIN PERSON GET SHOT AND THEN KICKED, OR THE OTHER WAY AROUND), WHAT WEAPONS WERE USED, ETC.AS SILVERSTEIN SAYS, THIS HIGHLIGHTS THE NEED FOR AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION, TO FIND OUT EXACTLY WHAT HAS TAKEN PLACE.

Friday, June 11, 2010

In his piece: "IDF Executed Mavi Marmara Victims," Richard Silverstein writes, after describing the fact that a footage of an actual execution of a passenger by an Israeli commando is now available:

"This changes everything. Here for the first time is evidence that the IDF was not just engaged in a defensive operation, but that it had determined to murder passengers. Gone are the hasbara [Israeli official propaganda - RG] rationales which defended Israel and blamed the victims for their own deaths.

I am ashamed of Israel. I am ashamed of my president's response to Israel."

Some of the footage is available with the article on Silverstein's blog "Tikkun Olam":

RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Although Israel successfully controlled news of its deadly commando raid on the Freedom Flotilla during the first crucial 48 hours of media coverage, emerging evidence from witnesses and survivors is challenging the Israeli government's version of events.

These include claims of medical treatment being withheld; beatings and abuse of passengers who never resisted; the Israeli military doctoring audio and selectively editing videos.

Furthermore, allegations of a possible shoot-to-kill policy, amidst autopsies revealing repeated gun shots to the heads of the victims, are also part of an emerging pattern.

One of the first targets of Israeli commandos raiding the Flotilla was the international media. Photographers were attacked, and journalists had their video, audio and other communications equipment confiscated. The equipment has still not been returned.

"It was clear that Israel wanted to control the media coverage of the situation from the very beginning," Huwaida Arraf, the Free Gaza Movement's chairwoman, told IPS.

Approximately 60 journalists from around the globe were on board the Flotilla. They were amongst the last to be released by the Israelis.

Israeli authorities denied other media access to the imprisoned journalists and activists during the entire period they were incarcerated. Reporters were also prevented from speaking to the Flotilla activists when they were deported from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International airport.

The Israeli army imposed a media blackout on the wounded being interviewed in Israeli hospitals, with soldiers stationed in hospital wards to enforce the ban. Journalists trying to enter Gaza to cover the raid were turned back by the Israeli authorities at the Erez crossing.

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has denounced Israel's editing and distribution of footage it confiscated from foreign journalists aboard the Flotilla.

CPJ refers to claims by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel that the military "is selectively using footage to bolster its claims that commandos opened fire only after being attacked."

In another incident, the Israeli military had to clarify and correct another audio tape it released to the media after questions were raised as to its authenticity.

In the audio one of the "activists" on board the Flotilla allegedly tells the Israelis, amongst other things, to "go back to Auschwitz" in what appears to be a fake accent from the United States' deep south. The "activist" is also heard telling the Israelis: "We are helping Arabs go against the US Don't forget 9/11 guys."

The Israeli army also claimed that the voice of Arraf was recorded on the Mavi Marmara, the boat where the activists were shot dead. However, she was on a different boat, the Challenger 1.

"There were no Americans from the south on the Flotilla. Furthermore, the only people to communicate with the Israelis other than myself were the captains," Arraf told IPS.

"One of them was British, two were Greek, two Turkish and one Algerian and they acted in a very professional manner. I was near the VHF radio during the entire period of communication with the [Israeli army] and none of those alleged slurs were made," added Arraf.

However, despite the Israeli military's retraction/correction, discrepancies remain even in the edited Israeli military audio which was released five days after the original one. The alleged slurs about Auschwitz and 9/11 remain.

Although it was inevitable that contradictory evidence would emerge following the arrival of hundreds of the released activists in Istanbul, Athens and other European capitals, the first dramatic events are no longer the main headlines of the major media outlets and network corporations.

And this was probably what the Israelis relied on as they went on the diplomatic offensive.

Nevertheless, the raid and its ramifications are not going away. Postmortems carried out by the Turks reveal that a number of the dead had numerous shots to the head in addition to other parts of the body. Thirty shots were used to kill nine people.

The Israeli military has a "confirm kill" policy where even after a person (who is considered a danger to the life of a soldier or other Israelis) is neutralized by several bullets, a final shot is fired into the head at close range to "confirm the kill."

Critics have questioned how individuals, who allegedly constituted threats to the life of the commandos, and would therefore be fighting and moving around, remained still long enough to receive so many shots to the head at close range.

Activists further accuse the Israelis of denying the dying and seriously wounded medical attention despite their desperate pleas for help. Other activists were forcibly prevented from going to the aid of the injured.

Survivors, reportedly, have also disputed Israeli claims that their soldiers used live ammunition only after they were attacked by some of the activists who fought back and managed to wound several of the soldiers. They claim the soldiers began shooting before they were attacked as well as after those who fought back had been neutralized.

Further, Israeli claims that the commandos only used violence against activists who attacked them have also been disputed. A number of activists have claimed they were beaten up in jail and at Ben Gurion when they were being deported.

This IPS correspondent was physically threatened and verbally abused by Israeli police when she witnessed, and took pictures of, several frightened and cuffed activists being frog-marched away from the airport's departure lounge.

Paul Larudee, a 64-year-old activist from the US and a diabetic, had to be hospitalized after he was beaten repeatedly on different occasions by the navy seals. Kenneth O'Keefe, an Irish-American and former marine, was hospitalized in Tel Aviv after he too was beaten by security officials at the airport.

O'Keefe wanted to fight his deportation but was advised by his lawyer to leave the country for his own safety.